Monument record MBC44899 - A Second World War searchlight battery, Biddlesden.

A Second World War searchlight battery is visible on historic aerial photographs and was mapped as part of the North Buckinghamshire Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18304). The battery is located across three fields about 400 metres ENE of Biddlesden House and centred at SP 63639 40037. Built to a fairly standard design, searchlight batteries contained pits for one or more searchlights, range finder and light anti-aircraft gun, as well as a power generator and often accommodation for crews. Visible on aerial photographs taken in 1942 and 1944, the searchlight battery comprises three C-shaped earthwork banks about 15 metres in diameter, these being the searchlight emplacements laid out in a trefoil pattern. Some 71 metres to the south of this is a large C-shaped emplacement with earthwork bank about 34 metres in diameter surrounded by a ditch that is likely to have housed the range finder and crew. A further C-shaped emplacement is possibly the generator post. The various emplacements are linked by a network of linear parallel tracks that lead to a string of about 18 variously sized rectangular military huts or buildings aligned N-S along the west boundary of the field adjacent the lane that would have provided accommodation and logistical support for the battery crews. In an adjacent field about 150 metres east of the searchlight battery is a further C-shaped emplacement that may have been an anti-aircraft gun post. Similarly, in a third field is a circular earthwork banked emplacement some 200 NW of the searchlight emplacements that was visible on aerial photographs taken in 1942 that might have also been an anti-aircraft gun post. This emplacement has been levelled by 1944. Some of the battery buildings have been demolished or removed by 1994 and the remainder gone by 1946. Only one building, located on its own on the east boundary of the battery field remains extant beyond that time, but has been demolished by 1973. All the battery emplacements and trackways have been filled in and levelled by 1946 and no evidence of the battery is visible on aerial photographs taken in 1973. No evidence of the features are visible on aerial photographs taken in 2019, though the probable anti-aircraft gun post is visible as a cropmark on aerial photographs taken in 2017. It is possible that these features have been misinterpreted as prehistoric ring ditch cropmarks reported in the same location (Her No MBC13144 / 0505900000) (1-6)